Rapidly devalued Russian ruble drags down neighboring currencies

Макроэкономика 02.12.2014 The Russian ruble's dramatic and rapid devaluation over the past six months has put downward pressure on currencies of countries, namely Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and other smaller CIS nations, that depend on exporting to Russia. As an example, Armenia's currency was down 4.4% over past week. In the wake of the Friday's OPEC meeting, yesterday's 4.41% decline of the ruble to 51.6479/USD (at mid-day, it was as low as 54/USD) put even further pressure on the CIS currencies, as the Armenian currency dropped another 0.8%, the Belarus ruble and the Kazakh tenge were flat. As the hryvnia was down 0.58% yesterday, we foresee that the hryvnia will be dragged down even further, unless the ruble appreciates back to 42-45/USD, which appears unlikely.